(Via .)

One aspect of Reisz’s article struck me in particular, which is that one of Cardinal Newman’s original principles in The Idea of a University was that a university should bring academics and students into proximity, not necessarily in terms of their ideas but physically, as a community living over an extended period under one (or several) roofs. However, with the expansion of higher education, halls of residence have become distributed (where they still exist at all), and the commendable open-access policies that inform institutions like the Open University suggest that geographical centredness is not itself central to the idea of a modern university.

Two anecdotes occur here to suggest that, in this particular aspect of his argument, Newman may have been short sighted (as Reisz shows, it is surprising how many other aspects remain pertinent today). According to these two, universities are really functions of action rather than place.

The first is from Gilbert Ryle’s Concept of Mind. He imagines a prospective student touring a university. He or she sees the library, the labs, the sports arena, but then asks the tour guide, “But where is the university?” According to Ryle, the mistake made by the student is a failure to realize that “university” and “library” are terms that belong to different logical categories. (The analogy signifies Descartes’ mistaken assumption that there is a ghost inside us that works a merely mechanical body, without understanding that mind labels a behaviour, which – like the university building – is a different category to things, including the brain that may give rise to mind). In the advertisements section of the same issue of the Times Higher, a university campus in Croatia is listed as being for sale or rent. The buildings may exist, but this particular university is no more; likewise, just because we have the infrastructure of universities in the UK does not mean that – whether in Russell red brick or Million+ concrete – they exist unchanging and for all time. Much of New Labour’s secondary education policy seems to have been directed at changing the architecture and nomenclature of schools, building glassy new academies – and they may be right that in this case changing the physical form of education for the better will also improve its chances of success with those who are involved in it. But, though that new physics lab or supercomputer may provide for a glossy photo opportunity, this rule does not hold true of a university in general.

The second anecdote comes from the U.S. When Dwight Eisenhower became president of Columbia University in the 1950s, he was introduced to senior faculty. He remarked how pleased he was to meet with the employees of the university. He was interrupted by the physicist I.I. Rabi: “Mr. President. We are not the employees of the university. We are the university!” (Thanks to Heinz R. Pagel’s The Dreams of Reason for this).
Ishmael

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Originally uploaded by Archiblog

To introduce this Archiblog I am selecting a varied collection which develops the themes established in a preceding collection by Cedric Price (1934-2003). In giving due acknowledgment to the original conception, the schemes are indexed under the same code letters, the definition of which is given here.